Sooners Want to Clean Up NU/OU Rivalry; Darth Husker Strikes Back

What an interesting contrast in stories out today. First (courtesy the Lincoln Journal-Star), Dave Sittler of the Tulsa World reports that Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione wants to restore goodwill between the Nebraska and Oklahoma athletic programs after the ugliness of 2004 (Ruf-Neks, Darren DeLone, F'n Hillbillies) and 2005 (Throat Slash). Says Sittler:

While the OU-Nebraska series is as intense and competitive as any in college football, it has never been marked by the hate and hostility associated with many rivalries.

Castiglione's plan was aided when Nebraska fired Callahan last season. It also helped that the Cornhuskers replaced Callahan with Bo Pelini, who was on OU's staff for one season.

ources said that when Castiglione approached Nebraska AD Tom Osborne at the Big 12 spring meetings in May to gauge his opinion of celebrating the 1971 Game of the Century, the legendary former Husker coach "loved the idea."

Oh, how Jack Mildren would have loved it, too.

So, hopefully, both schools will also celebrate Mildren's memory on Nov. 1 by embracing Castiglione's plan with the spirit Mildren displayed in the Game of the Century and the dignity he brought to it the rest of his life.

Sadly, the air of goodwill coming from Soonerland was repudiated by a urine bomb foisted by a Husker fan. Husker "fan" James Conradt (and I use the term loosely) decided to take farking to a whole new level, and made up a story about Sooner quarterbacks Sam Bradford and Landry Jones being arrested for dealing cocaine.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! What a riot!

Wait, it gets even funnier. He copied a web page from the Daily Oklahoman, and replaced the story with his own creation, and then posted it on his own web site (albeit using his web site's internet numeric address instead of darthhusker.com) and then linked to it on a Sooner fan message board.

Sooner fans panic. How fun! Radio stations in Texas report the news as well. So cool! The Daily Oklahoman spends about 5 seconds identifying the perpretrator by simply checking out the home page for the server that hosted the farked story. Bahahahaha!

Wait! The hilarity doesn't end there! Now the Daily Oklahoman is considering legal action for reproducing their web site illegally, as is Jones' father. Isn't this the funniest thing you've ever heard?

Of course not. It's one of the most moronic things I've heard a Husker fan do, short of making death threats to Kevin Cosgrove. No, it's not satire. It's called libel.

It's not the first time Darth made the newspaper. In January 2005, Conradt was featured in the Lincoln Journal-Star talking about internet message boards:

"It's kind of a hierarchy, you know. The more people give their insider info that turns out to be true, the more they build their credibility. I'm not one of those people," said James Conradt, aka DarthHusker. "It's funny. New people come along all the time and are naive and believe too much of what they read. A lot of people just post stuff to stir the pot."

Well, he certainly stirred the pot this time. And it blew up in his face. And even more sadly, some people are actually trying to defend the guy. Problem is that this wasn't satire... In fact, since Conradt now resides in Texas, this Texas Supreme Court ruling might come into play:

For any publication to have a defamatory meaning, it must be capable of being understood by a reasonable reader as stating actual facts. As the court held, a reasonable reader "does not represent the lowest common denominator," but is a person of "reasonable intelligence and learning."

How deep of trouble is Conradt? Well it depends on how far the Daily Oklahoman and the Bradford and Jones families want to push this. Sad to say that this week will be remembered not for Oklahoma holding out the olive branch to Husker Nation, but rather for the actions of a moron cloaked in Husker red.